My Favourite Albums 2012

Wait what? Where is your proper blog?  My beautiful flopearedmule.net is borked right now.  I have finally reached the end of my tolerance for the soul destroying suckhole which is Movable Type maintenance so I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it long term.   Meantime, Blogspot is still a thing who knew so I’m back IN EXILE at my old digs.

The Unrankable

Leonard Cohen -  Old Ideas & Bob Dylan - Tempest
There are a handful of artists whose new albums are not product to be ranked and dissected and assessed, they are new chapters -- scenes,  really -- in the unfolding of my life and do not require any further justification.  Even if they were objectively terrible albums (they are not!) it would be almost irrelevant 'cos me and Len and me and Bob, we are way beyond that, you know?   That said Old Ideas is truly superb and as good as Tempest is, I still think Bob's towering creative achievement of the year is probably that wild Mikal Gilmore Rolling Stone interview. A bravura performance, indeed.

According to Heck of a Guy this is the best version on video of "Going Home" performed by Len on the recent European/North American tour and I trust him.




& The Rest These are the first ones scribbled down as particularly memorable this year but there are other worthies which I may round up in a later post.

Le Fou  -- Zachary Richard     The veteran Cajun musician, poet and cultural activist has released his best album in years.  The songs are often socially charged, delivered via an infectious musical stew (some songs like "La musique des anges" are positively anthemic) and his warm voice.  It's basically entirely in French (I'm starting French beginner classes just after New Year at Alliance Française so check back to see if I hate it once I know what he's saying - joke!) but there are English translations on his site.  

Zachary Richard-Laisse le vent souffler. from CAR productions on Vimeo.

Hello Cruel World - Gretchen Peters   A really stunning album I reckon.  I have a fair few of her albums and I have always enjoyed them but this has really kicked things up to another level where the songs dig deeper than one expects with a real humanistic poetry all the way through, and which mesh perfectly with the beautifully executed music. 

Into the Bloodstream - Archie Roach
After a difficult couple of years for Archie by any measure - the death of Ruby Hunter and his own stroke - that this work is so full of life is a joy from a human and a music point of view.   The gospel choir running through works really well and Archie gets to show off a lot of range all through the record..
Speaking of Indigenous legends still gifting us with great music, Roger Knox has a record out early next year on a label that never puts a foot wrong, Bloodshot of Chicago.  I heard one track on a Bloodshot sampler and I simply cannot wait for it. 

El Gusto Soundtrack - Orchestre El Gusto A few years ago I randomly discovered Algerian chaabi (literally “folk”) which blends North African, Arabic and Andalusian music.  At the time I read about the concerts being staged in Europe reuniting the Muslim and Jewish chaabi musicians whp played together mid-century until the war of independence meant the Pieds-Noirs (Algerians of European origin) largely left.   The wonderful documentary  which lead to – literally – putting the band back together showed at the Sydney Film Festival earlier this year so I was excited to get to see it.   The soundtrack is fantastic, there’s something about that combination of styles which is irresistible, and being it is a real orchestra – like there are dozens of players on stage – the music has a real hard charging  force that carries you along.   FYI my favourite chaabi-style album is by Maurice le Medioni (who is in the film) and some Latin musicians called Descarga Oriental.

The Great Despiser - Joe Pug  Joe Pug is wonderful and adorable and I love him. This album is a semi-departure in that it has a full band behind it but the same calibre of songs full of beauty and humanity.

Ooh look, an official video. Fancy.

Boys and Girls - Alabama Shakes  Fantastic album of real deal rock n soul but I think they key to the Alabama Shakes might be seeing them live which happily I am scheduled to do in January when they play a (sold out) gig at the Metro.  I want to be Brittany Howard.

This One’s for Him - Various
Obligatory tribute album entry! Actually it's not obligatory since most of them are well meaning mediocrities, and while on this one also very little rises far above the originals in my mind (I admit I have an originalist prejudice for most songs) there is a comradely spirit about the project which envelopes me when I listen to it. And -- from the listener perspective -- the knowledge of long personal relationships between many of these people and Guy himself it manages to break out of the earnest sterility of most similar collections. Video is Suzy Bogguss "Instant Coffee Blues" - I'd say the best country song about a one night stand but honestly that's probably Tom T Hall "Tulsa Telephone Book", no?

Sing the Delta - Iris DeMent Geez it is just nice to have Iris back isn't it?

Everybody's Talkin' - Tedeschi Trucks Band  A live album double album. Smoking.

I Like to Keep Myself in Pain - Kelly Hogan File under instant classic, file under country-soul done right,  file under pour another merlot and turn down the lights and probably shed a tear.

Thankful n Thoughtful  - Bettye LaVette    “Everything is Broken” which opens this record is possibly the single entrant in my list of Dylan songs I actually think I prefer the cover of. I know.  For that truly historic achievement it needs to go here,  the rest is another highly satisfying slow burn soul powerhouse.   She definitively LaVetterises "Dirty Old Town". I expect it might be polarising but I dig it.  A link because they won't let me embed it grrrr. 

"I'm Dreaming" - Randy Newman  Randy didn't release an album this year but did make a song available for free download in time for the US election.  It makes me crack up regularly. It's interesting as per this interview that as it has come to pass he now has fans in the Toy Story-age demographic that he has to explain the satire in a way he didn't with, say, Good Old Boys.  The other thing Randy did this year was get elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class of 2013.  I guess since he met me last year it was the last honour he didn't already have. Grats Randy!

Teddy Thompson: Upfront & Down Low

Prior to Monday at around 3pm I had been listening almost non-stop to the Dylan, Norwegian stuff and Begonias of previous Septabulous* posts. Since then, post-visit to Egg Records in Newtown, it has been All About Teddy. All about Teddy, and his new long player Upfront & Down Low.

OMG YOU GUYS! This is brilliant. The SMH review is good for background, saving me the bother. Good boy, MSM! You're not totally redundant yet, bless.

So. Teddy. I think I saw him at the Leonard Cohen thingo at the Opera House that one time. Being only a casual-though-academically-appreciative Richard Thompson person he didn't set off many lights. This has changed. We are lit up like a Christmas tree now, we are.

The way the Brits mail ordered the blues, took it apart and sent it back to the states is well known. The tradition of them doing it to country is much, much smaller of course. Much more obscure, in "side projects" and generally dribs and drabs over the decades rather than a Generation Defining Movement. But there's still probably a BBC audio documentary in it. I will listen to the most derivative and unoriginal country music and love it because ... the original is so good, why wouldn't I want to hear a copy? Low rent romance, second rate pastiche. It works.

However. Bringing something new to a familiar tradition can thrill. Upfront & Down Low is a totally gorgeous album of only the absolute richest of countrypolitan sounds, but with subtle and alluring touches. The strings are Nashville but sometimes very much not, those are very English violins. Just a hint, here and there. Lyle Lovett is a name mentioned in many reviews but surely we must also nod to Nick Lowe.

The Teddy tenor sells it all with heart rending sorrow and the band is perfect (including Marc Ribot and Thompson pere). Iris DeMent, Tift Merrit and Jenni Muldaur on harmonies. Some of the songs are the most familiar in the canon, like "She Thinks I Still Care" -- hard to do badly and of course he doesn't. The "secret track" is for mine the killer: "Don't Ask Me to Be Friends." Recorded by the Everlys and Cliff Richard in the 60s. and apparently no one else. Having sought out all extant versions on iTunes I can tell you Teddy's is the definitive and lifts it from poppy B side to First XI. Seriously, I've still got the stitches where it ripped out my heart and bounced it off the walls.

MUST I SHOW YOU THE SCARS?? HAVE I BEEN HYPERBOLIC ENOUGH? WILL YOU GO GET THIS RECORD????

No? Allow me to continue then. The other killer. "Down Low" is the only Thompson original and it perhaps has a vibe which stands out it its modern type of brooding fatalism but fits in with in the classic type of brooding fatalism which runs through country. Whipping out the Bob Luman novelty "Let's Think About Living" feels like a friendly in-joke. Chet Flippo says "the song rejects" Teddy's version of "(All My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers" but, that's in the ear of the beholder and for mine, that song not only copes but positively prospers in this arrangement. It isn't a "British drawing room arrangement" actually, but someone needs to tell him your average British drawing room holds more perverted secrets, thwarted desires and unspoken despair than a David Lynch box set.

Last year Van Morrison released a country album. I didn't like it much, although a lot did. This is was hoping for, all that and more.

I'm also pleased this has fallen upon us since I'll be out of the country from early November and so any Best Of '07 will have to be an early one. Like, in October. Looking back, I won't be lacking for a top ten.

* Septabulous is the official name of my campaign to post once a day this month.

Norway or the Highway

Tom Russell's The Man from God Knows Where is a must have for all and it features a couple of Norwegian singers, Sondre Bratland and Kari Bremnes. Thanks to the miracle of eMusic, I recently started exploring their original Norwegian catalogues. I no speakee the Norskee and the lyrics are usually the main focus for me but I find I like their voices, delivery and the music so much I can’t stop listening.

Norwegian folk is not a million miles removed from the rhythms of, say, Celtic (memo: look that up) so it’s familiar enough to be immediately accessible and of course they just love their American country. Every roots/blues/country/folk mailing list I’ve ever been on has a high percentage of Scandinavians who have an encyclopedic knowledge of every B side and backing band line up change, as well as the most awesome collection of bootlegs and rarities. Want to find that only known copy of a 1983 college radio Steve Forbert interview? Ask a Swede.

Kirkelig Kulturverksted (translates as "Christian Arts Workshop" apparently,) the label The Man From ... is on, turned up on eMusic recently which allowed me to go to town. First I checked out Bratland and Bremnes since those were the names I knew. And then a whole heap of other albums were added including the "På Norsk" series. Norwegian tributes to Hank Williams, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.

Hank Williams På Norsk (at eMusic. at KKV. ) features Sondre Bratland, Vibeke Saugestad, Jonas Fjeld and Gunn Heidi Larsen and is currently my favourite, although there is much goodness on the others. On Hank, they stick pretty close to traditional sounds -- and when the lyrics are in a foreign language, you can really hear the simple beauty in familiar melodies. Sondre Bratland's "Eg Er Einsam Med Min Gråt" (I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry) in particular lingers. I don't know what "Styla Lada" means but its definitely the tune of "Jambalaya" and Gunn Heidi Larsen's icy crisp voice could cut glass. The spoken word track "Folk Med Knuste Blikk" (Men with Broken Hearts, I believe) loses a bit through the language barrier but, hey, that's my fault not theirs.

It's legally digitally downloadable from the above sources, although through the KKV its DRM'd and locked to Windows Media (which leaves out me on a Mac). If you object to downloading (FXH!), good luck finding a hard copy.

Something More

Two years late on this one but I've just discovered one of the best albums
of 2005: Begonias by Caitlin Cary and Thad Cockrell. Cary is the girl
singer from Whiskeytown but Thad is totally new for me. Modern traditional country duets which are a mix of the 70s Gram/Emmylou, an older Nashville tradition plus your modern alt.country sensibility. Thad sounds remarkably like Gram on one song ("Party Time"), and a dead ringer for Ryan Adams on another but you never the impression of pale imitation. The pleading quality in Cary's voice does wonders on an unrequited lurve heartbreaker like "Something Less":

Ride to places where I shouldn't
Just so you'd see me passing by
I know you're not there in the window
I guess it never hurts to try

Sniff. Not that I've ever done that. Just, sniff. "Coversations About A Friend (Who's In Love With Katie)" breaks the mould in being more than 7 minute long, but it sustains it and I always smile at this bit:

I heard her family didn't like him
Well its only chance they ever met
Her daddy said he talked like Nixon
Now there's a line I can't forget.

I love it all.

My faves aren't on YouTube but Please Break My Heart and Second Option (the very Ryan-y one) are not too shabby for a taste.